


Just an Old Shirt

by greygerbil



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-22
Updated: 2014-01-22
Packaged: 2018-01-09 16:06:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1147963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sheriff Stilinski finds one of Chris' shirts in his laundry and decides he'd like for that to happen more often.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just an Old Shirt

“Hey, dad, do you know whose shirt this is?”

The sheriff looked up from the paperwork he’d brought home to find Stiles peering over the stack of clothes in his arms at the papers John had spread out on the kitchen table. Habitual curiosity – admirable, maybe, but sadly, Stiles had always focused it more on things like, for a random example, John’s classified documents rather than his homework. Demonstratively, John slapped his flat hand on a witness statement and pulled it closer to himself to make a point before he looked at the shirt Stiles held in his right hand.

It was a tight shirt for men, black fabric that looked soft and well-worn, with a small gash over the hem on the right side – left by a blade strapped to the wearer’s waist, John realised after looking at it for a second.

“It was in the washing machine,” Stiles said.

“It’s mine,” John replied, quickly.

Raising a brow, Stiles draped the shirt atop others belonging to John on the backrest of the chair next to him.

“Must be a pretty old shirt.”

“Why’s that?”

“Let’s put it like this... if you ever wanna wear it again, you _really_ can’t have any curly fries.”

John grabbed the shirt and made as if to chuck it at Stiles’ grinning face, but as his kid ambled out of the kitchen, the Sheriff simply dropped the shirt back on the chair. Even through the chemically perfumed odour of detergent, it still smelled faintly of gunpowder and these strange herbs Chris always kept in his car for reasons John feared he would soon have to start understanding if he wanted to do his job in a world evidently filled with everything from Casper the Not-So-Friendly Ghost to Dracula. John had peeled the shirt off Chris after last week’s hunt as they made their way to the bed. When Chris stole away in the dark of the night, so Stiles wouldn’t be presented with a dishevelled hunter at the breakfast table the next morning, he must’ve grabbed the wrong shirt.

John tried to return to his murderers, but from the corner of his eyes, he kept noticing it. It was a completely asinine detail to fixate on, he realised. Just a forgotten piece of clothing. Since they were both careful, though, it was the first in a half year of late-night ‘discussions’ after the hunt that had ever made it into his house. Each with a traumatised kid at home, they hadn’t thought that introducing a new partner after a couple of nights together was an intelligent idea.

Except, it was really more like two dozen (very enjoyable) nights now. Allison and Stiles weren’t grade schoolers who never wanted their parents to love again, either, and neither Chris nor John had the potential to mutate into stepparents on the level of the Queen in Snow White, not that John was aware of. The word _stalling_ kept flashing in his mind.

His searching gaze fell on a picture of Claudia at the wall, framed above those of him and Stiles like the top of a pyramid. It wasn’t that it still hurt too bad after so many years; it was more how happy he felt at the thought of moving on that stopped him. Not happy to leave her behind, but knowing he had the chance to invite someone just as likeable and intriguing, yet completely different, into his life. John turned back to the alien shirt, wondering how far Chris was willing to go. For him, the wound of losing his wife was fresher. 

But he probably wouldn’t find the answer written in the textile fibres.

When he heard Stiles’ door shut on the first floor, John grabbed his phone, selecting Chris’ number from the most recent caller list.

“Argent,” he heard from the other end of the line.

“It’s John.”

“Everything alright?”

“Nothing in the closet or under the bed.” John absent-mindedly rubbed the fabric of Chris’ shirt between thumb and fingers. “You forgot your shirt.”

“Oh... yes, right. I took yours because mine was stained with the demonic bile stuff,” Chris said. John pulled a face as he remembered. “We’ll swap next time I drop by.”

“If you want to keep mine to cuddle up in, I understand.”

Though Chris snorted, amused, John gave himself a mental slap with a rolled-up newspaper. Once he started joking, it would be ever so much harder to get back on track. Before Chris could answer, he added: “Seriously, though, I... thought maybe you could store one or two more here, actually. You _do_ turn up at my house covered in blood a lot.”

A brief moment of silence. The significance didn’t seem lost on Chris, which immediately turned John’s stomach into knots like that of a teenager.

“Sounds reasonable,” Chris said and John could hear a bit of a smile in his voice.

“Great. How about you give them to me tomorrow, when I’m done with my shift? We could meet downtown.”

“Is there anything loose there?” Chris asked, alarmed. “Hunting in cities is always a damn mess. Too many witnesses.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s not set in stone we always have to kill things when we’re together, is it?” Though the norm, John had to admit. “How about dinner? Meat that hasn’t been chewed on by werewolves, all that fun stuff.”

“Stiles says you’re supposed to have tofu.”

John scowled ineffectually at his phone. “Do you want to talk yourself out of free food?”

Chris gave a rough chuckle.

“No,” he said, “I don’t. Meet you by the station at seven?”

“Sounds good.”

“It’s a date,” Chris said, almost gently, and hung up.


End file.
